0619 | The Future Is a Hopeful Past - True Crime Bullsh**

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is a studio both and production. All right, well,
Agent Ted Halla, thank you so much for taking the
time to chat with me. We've talked offline and exchange emails,
and I just want to say how appreciative I am
for your candor and your time. This is an exhaustive

(00:31):
and exhausting case, and I feel like we could talk
about it for hours, So I just appreciate the few
hours you've been able to give me.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, no problem. I'm happy to talk and you know,
share what I can with your listeners. And I appreciate
the work of everyone out there that's, you know, trying
to you know, identify who these unknown victims are and
solve some of these cases, because it's in twelve years
and it's very very difficult task.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
This is true crime bullshit. I'm your host, Josh Hallmark,
and this is a serialized story of Israel Keys.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
When I first started working on turning my Keys research
into a podcast back in twenty sixteen, I reached out
to a handful of people for interviews, Tammy, James Koenig,
Bobby Shacone, Deborah Feldman's son, the Macaw Tribe, doctor Ramslin,
Jolene Godin, and the General Anchorage FBI office. The responses

(01:52):
varied wildly, from variations of leave me alone to let
me think on it, to absolute or partial involvement. The
only lack of response came from the Macaw and the
active FBI, and I figured the FBI wasn't interested in
me or Keys, or working with the media or all

(02:14):
of the above, and so I moved on and made
dew for six years. In twenty twenty two, while searching
Lake Crescent with Gene Ralston, I got my first call
from the FBI. It was Special Agent Ted Halla out

(02:34):
of the Washington State office. He heard we were searching
the lake and wanted to give me helpful information on
what to look for in the lake and where the
FBI believed Keys most likely submerged as victim. There we
chatted on the phone twice for approximately forty five minutes
in total, mostly about Lake Crescent, interspersed with brief conversations

(02:57):
about potential Washington State victims, including in depth conversations about
del Mar Sample, and once the search was complete, things
got quiet again for two more years. In those two years,

(03:23):
a lot happened behind the scenes on the Keys investigation, namely,
three of the lead or original investigators retired, Godin Jeff
Bell and Monique Dahl, and in the media there was
a renewed interest in Israel Keys. Between twenty twenty one

(03:44):
and twenty twenty three, I was contacted by four different
production companies working on different Keys TV projects, and the
TCB team, namely Kim Kay, with help from Somewhere in
the Pines, successfully identif to fight the first Keys cash
since Keyes himself led the FBI to his Eagle River

(04:05):
and Blake Falls reservoir caches in twenty twelve, I believe
it was these three factors that contributed to some changes
in the way that the Keys case was being handled publicly,
a change of guard, renewed interest and confirmation that independent
researchers could in fact help move this case along. And

(04:32):
Agent ted Halla, the last original investigator still working on
the Keys case, was quickly approaching mandatory retirement. It was
both the right time and the right environment for the
FBI to make some moves. Over the past four months,

(04:55):
have exchanged dozens of emails with the FBI and have
spoken directly with Agent Holla over zoom for three hours
an hour last week and an off the record prep
call and two hours this week for an official interview.
In the weeks leading up to our interview, I sent

(05:15):
the FBI about a dozen documents to review. The verst
is what we've been calling the concept timeline, a robust,
thirty six page timeline which includes all of Keyes's known activity.
The name is forty five disappearances, every single sighting and
tip we've ever received, potential victims, potential robberies and arsons,

(05:40):
family birthdays, phone and credit card blackouts, important milestone's in
Keyes's life and his loved one's lives, and more. Next
were case write ups on Cameyon, Eugene Celia, Darlene Barnes,
Wendy de Hoop, Jonathan Corey, Donald Tobin, and Mark Oldberry.
Bearing in mind that we'd already emailed or spoken about

(06:02):
a dozen or so other cases, and halla asked that
I keep my questioning mostly focused on Pacific Northwest cases.
Then there were about a dozen tips and sightings we've
received over the years that we found crucial, credible, or both.
And then some miscellaneous documents or notes, including sightings in
the FBI files, theories we've developed over the years, and

(06:25):
so on. Now, unfortunately I had to be both strategic
and specific about what I sent and hoped to discuss.
We had limited time. We couldn't just sit down for
six days and rehash eleven years of research in six
years of podcasting. So there were three goals in mind

(06:45):
for this interview. To prove to Halla that I was informed, useful,
and trustworthy. To fact find and eliminate potential victims or theories,
and to forge a relationship that could lead to more
conversations with hopefully a greater level of trust and candle.

(07:05):
I did not go into our interview with great expectations.
I kind of figured that most of the information the
FBI has deemed shareable has likely already been shared. Additionally,
I felt pretty restricted by the request to keep the
conversation Washington State oriented. For me, the key's investigation needs

(07:26):
to be holistic and connective. His crimes and lessons influence
one another, and he travels to conceal his crimes, to
revisit his crimes, and to potentially move evidence. I'm very
hesitant to believe you can have a productive conversation about
keys that is entirely endemic. My major struggle going into

(07:50):
the interview was knowing that they have information that I
do not, while not allowing that to negate or minimize
my decade of work on the case. As Kaz reminded
me several times before and since, yes they are the FBI,
but you have just as much right to be at
the party. The interview overall was a mixed bag that

(08:15):
I consider mostly a success. There was a new information,
very relevant, new information. We ruled out a potential victim.
We developed new investigative avenues with new leads. Information I
shared with Ted sparked interest from him. We agreed on

(08:36):
a lot, and yet there were still things I didn't
agree with. For example, Ted Holla and seemingly the FBI
at large don't believe that Keys committed homicide until after
he was discharged from the Army in July of two
thousand and one. And while they spent time with Keys,

(08:56):
they got to know Keys in a way I never can.
I still disagree with this, and it's something I pressed
Hala on in both the pre interview and the recorded interview,
and it wasn't the only thing we disagreed on. Additionally,
there were a lot of answers that I wasn't satisfied with.
You know, there were all these matches to NamUs of

(09:19):
people on his computer and on there were the couriers.
Had he spelled Deborah Feldman's name correctly, it probably would
have been on there as well. Is there any reason
to believe and I think eighty percent of them can
be ruled out, is there any reason to believe that
any of those other names could be Key's victims?

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, I'm not familiar with all the names on there.
It's I guess a possibility. Yeah, I just don't know, okay.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
And then Texas, and I know you know your focus
is Washington State, but since we're there, I sent over
the Mark Julian Oldberry information that I have and I
just to me, you know, the Tidwell case and the
old Berry case are, in my opinion that I have
seen the strongest cases for keys, And I wonder if

(10:11):
you have any immediate thoughts after looking at that.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
And Texas has not been something I've looked at really
at all. Are two retired agents, Juline Godin and then
Jeff Bell Anchorage, PD. They knew a lot more about Texas.
That was something they looked at pretty hard, So I
definitely would defer to them for questions comments about Texas.

(10:34):
It's just something I don't I don't really have a
lot of knowledge about.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
One thing that stood out to me is repeated, often
suspicious trips to Vegas, where like his phone is off,
where he stops using credit cards. I know there were
maps of I think Nevada and Utah found in his
car at his arrest. Is there reason to believe that
there could be a victim from that area?

Speaker 2 (10:57):
You know? Just this morning, when I was kind of
preparing for coming on with you, I read where he
was talking about how he didn't like Vegas. And I
can't remember the exact reason, but he specifically talked about
how he didn't like Vegas and whether it was just
too much surveillance or what it was in the town.
But he specifically mentioned that as a place he didn't like.

(11:19):
So it's possible. It's possible, but he seemed to indicate
in the one interview that that was not a place
he was fond of.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, I was wondering if that was just his way
of being specific lying through specificity, as though like, maybe
he didn't like Vegas, but he didn't mind forty five
minutes south of Vegas.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
I don't think so. I think he was being honest
about not liking Vegas for whatever the reason was that
he said, but anything's possible.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Unsatisfying answers and disagreements aside, the interview was incredibly helpful
and impactful, and I've never been more confident than I
am right now that we can make some major movement
in this case that we can probably identify not just one,
but several keys victims.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
I remember following the case in just the news when
it happened. I've always kind of just paid attention to,
you know, kidnapping type cases. I've worked a few before
this one, and so I was aware of the Barisa
missing up in Anchorage, and I believe it was in
March of twenty twelve. I got a call from say
especially Juliene Goden from our Anchorage office tell me about

(12:42):
the case. How they had, you know, had arrested this
guy down in Texas that they believe was connected to
the disappearance of Samantha, and that through their background they
realized that he had lived in Washington State for many
years and specifically out in Nia Bay, which is one
that areas that my office covers. And so that first

(13:03):
phone call was, Hey, can you go out to Nia
Bay and just start interviewing as many people as possible.
And they understood that his ex wife lived out there,
and they want me to interview co workers and just
anyone that knew him. And so that's really where it started.
That next day, after that phone call, I was out there,
you know, interviewing people, and it's never stopped in a sense.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
What were your general impressions of him? I guess through
your initial research and then through eventually your discussions with him.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
He was very meticulous. It's paid a lot of attention
to detail that comes across when you listen to the
interviews with him, Like details mattered to him. If we
would get something wrong in an interview, he'd correct us
right away, which is actually great when we do child
forensic interviews, it's one of the things we teach children, Hey,
if we get something wrong, tell us right away. We

(13:53):
don't want to, you know, misspeak. And Keith was really
good about that. He was two totally different people. When
I interviewed all of these families and friends and co workers,
I couldn't find anything derogatory about him. Like he was
the best husband, he was the best boyfriend, he was
the best coworker, like just everyone he praised on him,

(14:16):
which seems so different to what we were investigating. And
so he really was just great at deceiving people as
far as this other side of the criminal element that
he had. Yeah, it was it was a shock. It
was a shock, and I think some of the family
that was even closest to him, I think they were
just convinced that the FBI was wrong, like somehow this

(14:38):
guy could not have done it, and it was just
in complete contrast to the person that they knew and loved.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
Hollow's comments about Keys getting stuck on details and correcting
them stood out to me. It reminded me of something
that doctor Cunkle said, we should look out for the
way that Keys would play with words to omit the truth,
verbal and linguistic gymnastics. And I started to think about
Keys lying through specificity, Keys drilling a question and his

(15:12):
answer down to such specific detail that he could evade
the truth without lying. It's something that comes up a
few times in our conversations, and it's a lens with
which we ought to listen to his interrogations. Yeah, you
talk about him being meticulous, and I think, you know,
if there's a one sentence description of Keys in the media.

(15:36):
It's that he's one of the most meticulous serial killers
of all time. And you know, I only ask you
this because I get asked it all the time. He
got caught in probably one of the sloppiest ways ever.
And I think, you know, when you look at the
crimes we do know he committed, they don't necessarily exist

(16:00):
as like a paragon of meticulousness. Like I wonder, do
you think he was devolving and losing control over time
or do you think those are the crimes we know about,
because those are the crimes he messed up in and
figured we would eventually find out about anyway.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
A little bit of both. I think it's clear that
as time was moving on, as we get into twenty twelve,
he was becoming more compulsive in doing things that he
shared with us he would have never done before, you know,
early on in his crimes. And so there was something
going on with him that was just causing him to

(16:39):
take risks that I don't think he would have previously,
and he acknowledged that in his interviews. I think it
would take a psychologist to probably dive deep into what
that might be. What was going on with him that
he was starting to, you know, do these more high
risk type things. But it was clearly that his pattern
in victimization was changing, and there was an adrenaline adrenaline

(17:03):
component that I think was causing him to do more
high risk things which have actually gotten caught.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
My team and I have noticed a pattern, and I've
talked to a few people, some criminal psychologists and some
former FBI agents about what could be a Keys pattern,
particularly later on as he was I guess devolving or
losing control, which is you know, following the Deborah Feldman murder,
he robbed the tupper Like bank and then following the couriers,

(17:31):
he had plans to rob a couple of banks up
in I think Jericho and Johnson, Vermont. If he did
in fact kill someone in Texas, he robbed a bank
around the same time that he likely would have done
that when he was offline and missing. Do you think
that you know, this is a pattern that we should
be looking into. Is like disappearances that occur in conjunction

(17:52):
with a bank robbery or an arson, or perhaps both
not necessarily.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
I think that the bank robberies were served a couple
of purposes for him, he didn't need money to be
able to, you know, hide some of his whereabouts in
travels because he's able to pay with cash. So I
think the financial side of a bank robbery helped him
in some ways with financing these other crimes that were

(18:18):
kind of really what he was motivating him. I think
for everything else, there was some adournaline rush when we
talked to it. When I had a chance to talk
to him in October twenty twelve, we mentioned about how,
you know, a takeover bank robbery gave him almost a
similar type high as kidnapping someone, So I think it
served that purpose as well. In the regard to arsons,

(18:41):
arsons are something that you know, we frequently see with
serial killers, like you know, it's it's a crime that
seems to associate with them for whatever reason. So I
think that may be part of the arson too. But yeah,
I think it's I don't think his kidnappings have to
be related to an arson or a robbery, but they

(19:02):
very well could pattern out like that. I mean, most
of our efforts have been since he passed has been
to really try to look at missing persons cases that
you know, potentially be connected to him. Knowing that the data,
we may not be seeing the data at all, because
you know, he made it clear that early on his

(19:24):
victims received little to no media attention, that you know,
he had this uncanny luck of grabbing people that didn't
go easily missed. But all he had to really look
for is what was already out there and hope that
you know, one or two of those may coincide with
one of his victims. And what we what I learned,
you know, is that with missing children, there's really good

(19:45):
databases and there's good records, but with missing adults that's
not the case. You know, if you look at people
that go missing from out of state a lot of time,
the record of their missing is from their home state,
not where they went missing. So became clear that it
was going to be really hard for us to feel
like we had a good grasp of all the missing

(20:06):
people in a particular area because we don't. But the database,
especially back then, just weren't that good.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, which it brings up I think a point of
frustration for us is particularly earlier on in his criminal activity,
he was operating mostly in state parks or you know,
federal and places where tourists generally flocked to So you know,
as we go through NamUs, I've had to remember, like
I can't just click on the Pacific Northwest disappearances because

(20:35):
they could be anybody. Yeah, speaking of Olympic National Park,
and I emailed you about this, there's one sighting in
the FBI files that stands out to me. It's this
gentleman who was fishing at the Hoe River, fishing and camping,
and he said a guy pulled up. I think the
guy even said his name was Israel. I don't recall,

(20:56):
but he pulled up, saw him there by himself. Yeah,
he did himself as Israel. And they started talking and
he said he was going he was waiting for the
snow because he was going to go work the ski
ski mountains. And he didn't bring in a camping gear.
He was driving what the guy believed to be a
light colored older junkie dots In or Toyota. Long story short.

(21:18):
Not far from there, later someone recovers what could be
a keys cash or kill kit, and so I just wonder,
have you looked into this? Do you find it credible?
And then I have a bunch of follow questions.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
Yeah, I took the call on that particular person at
the time while they called in, I thought it was
a really interesting story that he told. It made a
lot of sense to me that he'd remembered the name Israel.
He talked about how he was cooking up I think
pork chops or something like that. Yeah, and he asked

(21:51):
him if it's you know, basically invite him to join
him for dinner. But was concerned that this might be
something that would be a food he wouldn't eat, maybe
because of religious reasons, given his first name and stuff.
And you know, part of the scenario with this gentleman
was that he kind of felt creeped out by this
person Israel, and actually told a lie which you very

(22:12):
well you know, may have had a positive impact on
how things turned out. And that lie was that he
had friends that were coming to join him. I made
it sound like they could show up at any time.
Brilliant move on his part. And so, you know, they
spend the evening kind of chit chatting together, you know,
over this meal, and in the morning, you know, Israel's

(22:32):
gone and there's a note left on his windshield thanking
them for the meal. It very well could be. Unfortunately,
he wasn't able to narrow it down to a specific
time or where we could do, you know, dive into
a timeline and try to figure out where Keys was
at the time and see if you know, we do
any corroboration that way. But I think it very well
possibly could be him, just don't enough details to know

(22:53):
for sure.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, it's it's stands out to me because we you know,
there's some of the files. There's some we found just
like searching the internet, and some that have come directly
to me, very similar encounters in Washington State and New
York Vermont area of some guy introducing himself as Israel,
who they swear up and down is Keys, who gives
enough information about his life that it aligns with everything

(23:17):
we know about Keys. And you know, one such one
in the files is this Lake Paris encounter where the
guy I believe says his name is Israel, he says
he's a contractor, he says that he served in two
thousand and one, that he was abroad, and then the
same thing, the guy's like, oh, actually my kid's here

(23:37):
with me, And as soon as he said that, the
guy loses interest. It stood out to me is super credible.
So I guess, like in similar circumstances. Are you looking
for sightings that kind of line up with that where
it's you know, this person who gives enough information about himself,
particularly sightings that come in before your press releases go
out when people don't know these details about keys. Is

(24:00):
that part of your investigative process?

Speaker 2 (24:02):
It is. I think every tip that comes in, especially
when it's a sighting type tip, you know, we take
a deep look at it. It's the best we can. Statistically,
those type of tips often end up where the person
is mistaken. And example I can give you is I've
worked a lot of large investigations over my almost twenty

(24:24):
five years, and when we do reach out to the
public through the media, you know, asking for help, whether
it's trying to find a missing person or you know,
be on the lookout for this particular subject, especially in
a really big case, we'll get hundreds and hundreds of
tips that come flying in. Statistically, ninety five percent of

(24:45):
them are not related to the case. And most of
those tips that come in are people saying, hey, I
saw this person at this area right, you know, head
contact with this person here, and they're not Most of
these individuals are calling in, they're not lying to us.
It's just that they're mistaken about who this person really is.

(25:06):
And when you have a lot of a large time gap,
it even gets harder and harder just because people's memories
change and things like that. So when we get tips
in about people who you know, swear that it's is
real keys that they saw or had a contact with, statistically,
I know it's it's a very small chance it's probably
a real encounter, but we have to dig into it

(25:28):
and do the best we can to try to let
out the information because investigators are looking for that five
percent where it's really significant and is a real event
that could you know, help turn a case. And that's
why we're so thankful when you know, people reach out
to law enforcement with their information knowing that statistically most
of them are gon't be mistaken about, you know, the
person that they're calling about.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, no, that makes sense. I'm inclined to agree that
ninety five percent of tips that come in are likely inaccurate.
But what stood out to me from this conversation and
how it could inform betting tips, is this in both
that Hoe River tip, which he believes is credible, and

(26:13):
the Laplace encounter, which we now know was Keys. Keys
happened upon someone in a remote and isolated area who
was initially alone. He introduced himself as Israel. He gave
information about his life, like where he lived, what he
did for a living, or what his hobbies were, and
then his demeanor changed once he became aware that there

(26:35):
were other people around or in root. And we have
a handful of tips that closely or exactly match that behavior.
And while every tip should be scrutinized and honestly taken
with a grain of salt, the tips that match these
should be taken slightly more seriously and warrant further discussion.
As doctor Cuncle has reminded me, it's nearly impossible for

(26:58):
multiple unknown people in different places to make up or
misremember seemingly identical encounters. And there's so many like this,
so many times where he introduced himself as Israel and
talked about serving in the army in Egypt, talked about
being a construction worker from Alaska, talked about living on

(27:21):
tribal land. The Everett Community College encounter comes to mind,
as do Paris Lake and the contradance among others. And
then I guess circling back to that encounter on the hoe.
You know, something stood out to me is, you know,
he talks about this junker, junkie, older white car, and

(27:43):
I know that Keys, around the time that this guy
believes this encounter had happened, was dating a woman who
like incidentally ran into him and he was driving a
car unknown to her. She asked him about it, he says, oh, yeah,
this is just my car that I use for traveling.
I believe that the next part of that sentence is
redacted in the files, but he has a specific use

(28:06):
for this car that no one's ever seen. And it
got me thinking, because there's something else that comes up
in the interviews that I've never heard elaborated Honor expounded
upon where he briefly mentions that he went through a
period where he was like working on old cars. And
so to me, like, if you look at these three
things altogether, it's you know, Keys with this car no
one seems to have heard of or seen this guy,

(28:29):
seeing him in a very similar car out in the
woods while he's presumably trolling. And then this, according to
Keys' you know activity, where he's picking up older used
cars trying to I guess turn them around and then
this photo from the constable property where there's at least
two junkie old cars parked on the property while he's

(28:52):
living there. Have you looked into, you know, Keys's possible
position of other cars and whether you know he used
stolen cars or cars he was working on in the
conjunction of his crimes.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
I have it myself. I'm aware of some of the
vehicles he had when he was out in Nia Bay,
but I haven't dove into, you know, other type of
cars that he was working on and stuff like that,
So I definitely don't have a good grasp of all
the different vehicles he might have used or had access to.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Okay, do have a good sense of I guess, in
particular this Pontiac grand am that he had.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
I don't. I didn't dig into it real, you know,
real deep, just because he wasn't real sure about the vehicle,
how much time had passed. It's very possible that you know,
Keys would have access to different vehicles, But no, there
wasn anything that really significant was significant from that.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Okay, Yeah, it just comes to mind because I know
after the the shoots attack, he talks about like feeling
like he can't be driving around in places he lives in,
you know, any any car that could be recognizable to
people he knows. And so then all of a sudden
you have a girlfriend seeing a car she's never seen
before and him talking about him working on all these
used cars, and you're like, Okay, this seems intentional.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, yea.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
So speaking of sightings, and I don't want to spend
too much time on them, but I had sent you
a few and I think of those, you know, there
are two that stand out the most to me, and
one is out of Vaidor, Texas. This woman is in
a cemetery visiting her grandfather's grave and she sees who
she believes to be keys, rushing toward her from the woods.

(30:32):
She's been very active about this in the media, which
always makes me a little anxious, but to me, it
kind of lines up with everything we know about keys.
We can place them in the area at the time.
Have you been able to look into this and do
you have any thoughts about it?

Speaker 2 (30:47):
You know, I just saw the information that she passed
on and took a look at it, and just hard
to say, you know, I would want to do a
little more or research. Clearly an interview with her and
then kind of dig into a little bit of background
and stuff, and it's possible, like it's very possible. It's

(31:09):
just hard to say, you know, whether it's apprid or not.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
So I want to go to We talked a little
bit about it, and I think I sent you the information.
This barista in Squim who got to know Keys fairly
well just from him driving through her coffee stand and
getting coffees, and she had told the FBI that he
had come through with a man that he alleged was
his father, well after his father had died, that he
had come through with a dog that he alleged was

(31:35):
his but there's no record of him having this type
of dog. And he had gone shooting with one of
her buddies out near very near where Steven Michael Mason
disappeared from. Have you been able to look further into
this and do you have any thoughts or ideas or
is there any other information you can provide.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
I've taken a you know, close look at that report
again in just all the facts of it. I think
she's just very she's just mistaken, but she believes is Israel.
Keys is not Israel. I mean, no, the facts line up.
We know he didn't have any dogs during that time period.
He wasn't doing construction jobs during that time period. He

(32:15):
was doing some side jobs for people in Nia Bay.
You know, he did some simple remodels, was doing some
furniture builds and stuff like that. But there was definitely
no construction type jobs going on, especially outside of Nia
Bay at that time. The information about you know, the
person being his father, we know his father died a
year prior to that shooting range. There's all kinds of

(32:39):
easy access shooting ranges in THEA Bay that he would
have used before driving two two plus hours to Squim.
So I think she's just mistaken. I do not believe
that's israel Keys that she's talking about.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
I get asked this a lot, and I'm sure you'll
be as annoyed by it as I am. And you
actually believe there's less than a dozen victims, because just
looking at his suspicious travels, context clues he's given, it
seems like there's likely more.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
I believe there's less than a dozen Americans. You know,
he was clear to say he wasn't going to talk
about Canada Canadian stone comps. I think the words he
used when you understand where he was in the process
of he was trying to get the death penalty. He
wanted it within a year. As brilliant as he was

(33:36):
with his crimes, he was super naive about the US
legal system to think that he could get the death
penalty in a year. But I think he was smart
enough to know that if he identified any victims outside
of the US, that was going to drag everything on
for years and years and years, and he wasn't going
to do that. Myself and the different investigators up in

(33:57):
Anchorage that have really worked hard on this case, we
all agree that we believe that, you know, the number
eleven is a good number. I mentioned earlier about how
Keys would correct us, and the investigators during the interviews
would do different things where they would say eleven, you know,
and to see if he would correct us, and he wouldn't.

(34:18):
And I think we feel pretty comfortable with that given
all the evidence, you know, the bloody skulls that they recovered.
And again, I think he was looking for the death penalty.
If he wasn't going to get it in the federal system,
Washington was his backup plan. And you think why Washington. Again,

(34:39):
he's really naive about the death penalty in Washington State
and how little it's used. But Washington had the next
most victims, and that's why that was his plan. B
A single victim in Texas would have probably gone him
death penalty faster than it would have ever in Washington.
But I don't think he grasped that. But I think
eleven's a good number for US victims.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
I guess that begs an obvious question. Looking at you know,
the border patrol records and immigration records, it doesn't look
like he's actually in Canada that often. Are we attributing
this to like pre nine to eleven or do we
think that there's just some visits that aren't accounted for?
And then I guess secondary to that, what stands out

(35:23):
to me is when he's moving to Alaska and it
takes him four days to drive, I think ten hours.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Yeah, And there's been shows on that trip from you know,
the US to Alaska, like they've had a lot of
missing persons and you know, killings up along that highway.
I think forty eight hours. Did something on that you know,
maybe ten years or so ago made me think of
keys right away, Like, yep, that's that's the rout you
we've taken up there. I mean, it's pure speculation on

(35:50):
our part because we just have no information from him
or from any other source to indicate that there's a
Canadian victim. But I wouldn't be surprised if if there was.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
This is another place where I disagree with Hulla and
the FBI at large, based on travel and context clues alone,
Just eleven victims, even if it's eleven just in the States,
does not seem likely to me. But where I agree
is in regards to his move to Alaska. As I've

(36:22):
previously reported, it took Keys three days to drive from
Cash Creek, British Columbia to Watson Lake in the Yukon Territory,
what is normally an eighteen hour drive between the morning
of March fifth and the evening of March seventh, and
during this time we can't place him at any hotels.
A considerable stretch of that drive was on what is

(36:45):
referred to as Canada's Highway of Tears, a notorious stretch
of highway between Prince George and Prince Rupert, British Columbia,
where the RCMP has acknowledged at least eighteen murders and
disappearances of Indigenous people between nineteen sixteen nine in two
thousand and six, although that number is suspected to be
significantly higher, likely exceeding forty, and the disappearances and unsolved

(37:09):
murders have continued since two thousand and six. There are
no reported disappearances that occurred anywhere near that stretch of highway,
while Keys himself disappeared on it for three days Strong
emphasis On reported. However, a fourteen year old First Nations
boy named Desmond Peter went missing on an unknown date

(37:32):
from Duncan, British Columbia, about fifteen miles north of Victoria
during this approximate period. The only reporting I've seen indicates
today that he was reported missing March twelfth of two
thousand seven, but I have not seen any reports that
stay a time and date of his last known whereabouts.
But like the FBI, I've long believed that Keys likely

(37:55):
abducted and murdered a Canadian during his move to Alaska.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
We also know when he was over in, you know,
the northeast part of the country. He talked about frequently
going up to Canada because the prostitution reasons never indicated
that he had a homicide victim up there, but he
clearly was crossing over the border. I think you have
mentioned how easy it was back then to cross the
border kind of undetected, so that he could, you know,

(38:22):
seek about prostitutes up there in Montreal.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Okay, yeah, you know, when you look at his history,
he always seems to be within ten miles of an
international border between Maine and New York and Neia Bay.
So that begs the question. And I hate to beat
a dead horse. You know, we talked about it offline,

(38:46):
and I know the FBI seems pretty firm on they
believe that he didn't kill anyone prior to the army.
But then you even look at, you know, his access
to Canada as mainly going to be before the army,
and then I think of the Dishoots rape and he
says that he regretted not killing her, and then he
waits three and a half years to try to kill
someone again. And then also there's this point where he says,

(39:09):
you know, the longest that ever occurred between crimes or murders,
I think the language is not clear, but is three years.
And he says when I was in the army, So
all this to me seems like maybe we shouldn't necessarily
discount crimes that it would have occurred before the army,
or I guess murders specifically.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Well, I do believe him that his first homicide occurred
after he got out of the army, which would be
July in two thousand and one. His July tenth interview.
I don't know if you guys have talked about that
on your podcast, but that's a really great interview in
the sense that it kind of lays out the groundwork of,
you know, how he got into this criminal activity and

(39:49):
kind of the growth and development of you know, his
crimes and his victims and stuff like that. And you know,
he talks about how when he was in the army
that's when he decid I did, like, if I'm going
to kill someone, I just need to do it. Basically
I'm paraphrasing, but he talks about how that was in
the army when he got to that realization, and then

(40:10):
he talks about in that same section of the interview,
he talks about how, you know, when he was in
the army, the army was good for him in the
sense that it kind of kept them from a lot
of the criminal activity because he just there was someone
always watching, and he mentions about how, you know, he
implies that it's his you know, first homicide. But it's

(40:31):
only a few months after he gets out of the
army that it occurs, like he's kind of got his
freedom again, you know, after he gets out of the army,
and he participated in those things that he's you know,
kind of been wanting to do. But yet, I think
that July tenth interview is very convincing to me that
I don't think there's earlier victims. And I think in

(40:53):
some of our other more general conversations with him, if
there were earlier victims, I don't think he'd hold back
on it. It may not give us the detail else,
but I don't think he would deny it or you know,
say that there weren't okay.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
And I guess that takes me to a fairly obvious question,
which is, you know, he said that once his daughter
was born he couldn't kill kids. I think ellipsis anymore
or maybe implied anymore. And obviously she was born not
too long after he got out of the army. So
is the speculation or assumption that you guys are operating

(41:29):
off of, is that his first victim or one of
his earlier victims could have been a child.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Well, the words he used in that interviews, I wouldn't
mess with kids, and so I never took that that
meant that a kid was necessarily a victim versus, you know,
targeting someone who may have had a child with them
or something like that. That's how I understood the words
he used. Messing with kids could mean all kinds of

(41:56):
different things. It doesn't mean kid was necessarily a victim.
And a fine example is when he talks about the
couriers and he was, you know, in their garage and
he's looking through their vehicle. He wanted to find out
are their kids present, because that probably would have been
a deal breaker for him at the time. So I
think that's probably more of what he was talking about.

(42:18):
But you know, unfortunately we don't have enough you know,
information from him to be exact on what he was
you know, what he meant by that phrase. I'm not
I'm not going to mess with kids, but I don't
think it necessarily means that a kid was a victim
or had to be a victim.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
The one thing that I keep coming back to and
I've talked to Bobby Chicone and then a few criminal psychologists.
You know, things you should look out for are him
returning to scenes so I mean, not even specific or
endemic to the Vall and Draft Hyatt disappearance, But do
you think it's likely Keys would have returned to the
scenes of his crimes, either to relive it or just

(42:58):
to poke around and make sure you know, no one
had seen him or disturbed the crime scene.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
It's possible. We know that he sunk one of the
Washington victims in Lake Crescent. It's my opinion that wherever
he sunk the body is probably observable from the highway
there because he would have gone back and forth from
Port Angels to Nia Bay hundreds of times. And I
think memories are really important to him, and so I've

(43:28):
always thought that wherever the body was sunk on Lake Crescent,
it's probably within viewing distance of the highway because I
think he would be able to relive that as he's
driving back and forth, which he would have done hundreds
of times. Whether he goes back to you know, other
crime scenes, we just we don't really know, but it's
very possible.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Okay, Yeah, I mean, that's something because you look at
the couriers and like Essex as a place he could
feasibly drive through over and over and over again, particularly
between his cabin and his brothers and his family cabin.
And then you look at Deborah Feldman, and if what
he says is true, he brought her all the way
back up to an area he could drive through over
and over and over again. So to me, it seems like,

(44:10):
you know, while the whole mythology is like going to
unknown places and taking people across state lines or whatever,
it seems that he always wanted to operate or at
least return the victims to an area that he knew
well and spent time in.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
I think in some cases that was it. He did
talk about at one point a bunch of his early
victims didn't get moved, so you know, the initial contact
with them was also the crime scene with them. So
I know later that kind of changes with the couriers
and stuff, But earlier on, I know he shared that

(44:47):
he wasn't moving them. You know, where he found him
is where the crime scene ended up being.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Yeah, I sent you a few from the Pacific Northwest,
and I think Jonathan Corey is interesting and one of
those cases where there's a lot of elements and you
can't really make sense of what happened. Paula and I
had discussed John Corey's disappearance first in our email exchanges
and then again during our pre interview, so I guess

(45:14):
pressing pause on that. Celia Darlene Barnes and Wendy to
Hoop both have pretty straightforward disappearances, and I think Celia
Darlene Barnes closely matches them o that Keys had at
the time that she disappeared, which is lay in wait
in the woods hikers campers. Did you have time to
review those cases and do you have any thoughts or

(45:35):
were you able to rule Keys out at all?

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Let me take a quick look. There were someons able
to rule out based on timeline information. So Wendy to
Hoop was one of the ones you mentioned. Yeah, Yeah,
so that one there we actually have really good timeline
information on, and I think we can very comfortably remove
him from that one. So she goes miss on April

(46:00):
twenty second of two thousand and five down in Eugene,
organ We have emails from Keys from that time period,
and so from the emails we know that he's going
on a romantic weekend get away with his girlfriend. At
the time they end up heating down to Yakaman. They're
on a wine tasting tour that coincides with the receipts

(46:24):
we have as financial receipts, and then we also have
the cell tower information from his Verizon phone. And on
the day of her disappearance, on the twenty second, they're
in port Angelists. There's numerous purchases, there's cell tower hits
that coincide with that, and then on the twenty third
and twenty fourth, we had them traveling out on this

(46:44):
wine tasting tour together. So it just seems like there's
absolutely no room for him to debate down to Oregon
to committed crime during that weekend.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
This winery tour peaked my interest. I recalled looking into
a John Doe who was found under an outBut at
a vineyard somewhere in eastern Washington sometime in the mid
to late oughts, and he'd initially been on our radar
while looking at eastern Washington does and noting that around
the time that this man's remains were found, Keys and
Kimberly had been doing a lot of wine tasting in

(47:14):
and around Washington. I went back to try to find
this report. It turns out it was a John Doe
of Caucasion or Hispanic ethnicity, whose skeletal remains were found
under a worker's cabin on a vineyard in nearby Shelan County.
And interestingly, within the last year or so, this dough
has been removed from NamUs, which leads me to believe

(47:37):
he's been identified. I reached out to the Shelane County
Coroner's office today for additional details and waiting for them
to return my voicemail. Okay, And then Celia Darlene Barnes
was the other one.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
I'm not as familiar with Barnes off the top of
my head. Can you give me a little more information
on that yet? Minded?

Speaker 1 (47:58):
Yeah, So she and her sister were hiking in Gold Hill, Oregon, which.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
What was the date on that one, That is.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
September one, two thousand and two. And essentially she they
were collecting cans I think, in this hiking area, and
her sister says that they got separated for you know,
less than fifteen minutes before she realized that she was
just gone. No sign of her whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
Oh, I just I don't have much We don't have
much timeline information on him in two thousand and two,
so I don't have anything that eliminates him. But I
don't have anything that puts him down there either, anything
like that. So it's hard to say. I guess I
have no opinion on that one, just because we don't
have very very much information on Hemore's whereabouts at the time.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
One thing I've looked into, especially now that we have
a better sense of Laplace, Louisiana and what was happening
there and your mention of him being on this wine
tasting trip, there are a few instances where either he's
with a girlfriend or potentially with his daughter, where suspicious
activity is happening, like his phone is off or he

(49:10):
disappears for a few hours. Is there any reason to
believe that, using Laplace as an example, that he and
his kid are in Lafayette and he puts her to
bed in a hotel and then goes out and is
committing crimes or preparing for crimes.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
I think it's possible, especially towards the end, when again
I think he's being more compulsive, taking more risks and
stuff like that, because clearly that adds a lot of risks,
so it's possible. I think as far as like scouting
out for future crimes and stuff like that, I think
he's always doing that. I think when he's out and about,

(49:46):
that's in the back of his head running all the time.
So I could definitely see him scouting areas with family
members and friends while he's traveling.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Absolutely, So I want to talk about a few like
timeline anomalies and forgive me because the first one I'm
going to bring up, I did not send you. It
just came to mind. Heidi Keys, in an interview, said
that following the army or following Egypt, Keys went and
spent six to eight either weeks or months with her

(50:16):
in Maine, and I've it's just like an off the
cuff remark in during one of her interviews. I can't
see any anything in the timeline. There's like a six
weeks period where I can't place him anywhere. But I
don't have what you have. Is there any truth to
this that he just like went up to Maine for
six weeks.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
I'm not familiar with that part of the timeline. I'm
definitely happy to research it. Do you know what time
that was that she's saying that he was up there.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
She just said after he got back from the Middle East.
So I guess that would have been like late two thousand.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yeah, sixty eight weeks sounds like a long time. I
could see him doing a short trip up there, but
I don't think he would have had that kind of
leave to be able to go up there for that
amount of time. I wasn't part of that interview, but
I'm wondering if she's just kind of mistaken with time frames,
which is very easy for people to do.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
Yeah, that's kind of what I figured, And the only
thing I could make sense of is maybe he had
just had significant leave that he needed to use before
he was discharged.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it seems like a long time for
him to be away.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Yeah. The other one and is there's two he has
two fishing licenses the same weekend, one in Utah and
one in Alaska. I think I think it's a keen eye.
Have you guys looked into this and.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
I haven't, And so I wondered, without seeing the original records,
if the Alaska one is a yearly license and then
the other license is like a shorter three day that
you can buy when you're you know, out of state
and stuff like that. It doesn't cost so much. But
I haven't looked at those two licenses to be able
to DIFFERENTI that.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
Okay, yeah, I believe I don't have in front of me.
The Alaska one. He purports to have caught fish during
this weekend. But then this other fishing license alleges that
he's in Utah that weekend.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
Interesting, I've never seen that before.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
And then this goes back to an offline conversation we
had about I guess analyzing and making sense of or
your methodology behind ruling him out based on travel records,
phone records, financial records. But there's a few times. The
one that stands out the most to me is where
he like flies into Grand Forks, North Dakota, and then

(52:35):
miraculously appears in Phoenix six days later, and there's no
records sorting out how he got from one place to
the other. There's a few other instances of this in
the timeline. Do you attribute that to just a lack
of data or do you think it's you know, trains, carjackings,
car theft. What do you what comes to mind when

(52:58):
you see these? You know him disappearing in one place
and appearing somewhere else.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
The simplest answer is probably just we weren't able to
get the data, whether that's from the travel you know,
whether it's from the airlines or do you know, the
rental cars or whatnot. I think it's us just not
being able to get the data. It's probably the easiest explanation.
You could come up with. Other explanations, Like you've implied,
maybe there's some criminal activity involved that gets him from

(53:24):
one place to the other. I mean, that's very possible.
We try to be very thorough and give as much
records as we could. Did we get everything, absolutely not.
I know we did not get all the records that
are out there, but we got what we could. So
I would attribute some of those those facts that don't
seem to line up really well probably what it was
just we're missing data, okay.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
And then I guess similar to that, there are many
trips where he's taking what seems to be just the
most like asinine way to get from one destination to another.
And it's not like the couriers where he's like flying
into Chicago and then driving you know, hundreds of miles.
It's like he's flying into this town for one day
and then flying to the next town a day later.

(54:08):
And I do attribute that to suspicious activity or just
to him being broke and basically getting from one place
to the next the cheapest way possible.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
It could be probably both. Possibly. I don't think he
does a lot of stuff randomly, So I think whatever
it is in his mind, he's got purpose in everything
he does. Now, whether he money's a factor, which I
don't know how much. He never talked about money being
a factor, And I think that's you know where the
bank robberies and you know, getting that cash comes into

(54:40):
play with, you know, him being able to take these
trips and do these type of things. But yeah, I
think there's purpose and everything he does. I don't think
it's it's accidental.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Can you tell me a little bit about the work
you're doing with the cold case unit right now? We
talked about that a couple of days ago.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Yeah, so maybe a little year ago. I was working
with when the Sheriff's office here on the Peninsula, and
they've got a really gifted digital forensic detective. He does
all their examination of cell phones and computers and a
lot of child crimes and we were just talking about
how the forensic software is so much better today than

(55:20):
it was ten years ago. And so we start talking
about the keys case and about how we initially looked
at his computers back in twenty twelve. That's where deblah
Feldman's name popped up and kind of brought her to
the radar, and we just thought, hey, I wonder what
we could find an addition now with this latest creative
software that's out there, and so we talked with Anchorage.

(55:42):
Anchorage thought was a great idea. So we initially sent
down a copy of his laptop computer. This is a
laptop that he had in Texas with him, and let
this cold case start taking a look at it and
see what else might be on there and what this
other software might be able to do. And we've had
some success with that. We found those maps from Louisiana

(56:05):
on there that may coincide with the cash that I
know you guys have talked about, and so we're taking
a look at that. And then just more recently, we decide, well,
let's bring down all the other digital evidence that we
have two keys and take a look at that as well.
So we've got those items down here now in process
of getting them over to the cold case for those

(56:27):
guys to start taking a look at those, and then
just recognizing that this past year we've had three investigators
retired that we're working the Keys case. There's a few
of us that are left, but that's not going to
last forever, and we've recognized that we also have a
lot of physical evidence that probably needs to be looked

(56:47):
at a second time, especially since we know so much more.
We've had time to digest everything that Keys talked to
us over those twenty six different interviews, and so we've
also brought down all the maps, there's miscellaneous documents, there's emails,
there's books, I know, there's survival books that we got

(57:07):
out of one of the search warrants out of the
northeast there. So we're going to go and take a
look through all that and then do detailed reports and
photograph everything and eventually get that all into the case
file and then you know, for you know, persons like
yourself that are interested in that, that should be available
through FOYA then down the road. But we're hoping that

(57:28):
maybe we'll see some new clues, see things now with
fresh set of eyes that maybe got missed early on
because when those search warrants happened and the evidence was
initially looked at, we didn't know everything about his crimes
at that point, because it wasn't until you know, later
in twenty twelve that he started opening up about some
of these other crimes, and a lot of this evidence
had initially been looked at under the guys of Samantha Konig,

(57:52):
but not so much about the other crimes that he
later talked about. So I'm excited that maybe we'll get
some some you know, tips or leads that'll come on
of that.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Have you found anything interesting through that work as of
yet now yet.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
We haven't started yet, to be honest. So just before today,
I was sort of just for coming on with you.
I was talking to one of the guys that heads
up to Cold Case Unit to talk about our plans
over the next couple of weeks of you know, getting
this review schedule.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
It's interesting because the way Keys describes that he's like
a luddite, but he seemed to have a pretty active
online life and seem to use the Internet and digital
media quite frequently, at least in the researching of his
crimes or the prepping for his crimes. We've been doing

(58:41):
a bunch of like analysis of Google trends and then
data mining, you know, Keys's information gets leaked in like
a data leak, and then you can see like, oh,
he had this email address that we didn't know about,
or he had this account on discuss where he's commenting
and arguing with people about the culture in the middle least.
Have you guys looked at any of that, you know?

(59:02):
The one that stands out to me is he's fighting
with someone on a web forum and says, he here's
my Skype account, say it to my face, and b says, well,
you know, supposing I'm a serial killer who's killed fifty
plus people. So it's almost like it was this place

(59:24):
where he could hyperbolically, I guess, externalize his interior life.
But I also wonder if you think there's anything important
we can glean from some of this online activity.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
I'm not really familiar with some of the stuff you're
talking about. I love to take a look at it.
I know that, especially later and later on during his crimes,
especially as we get closer to twenty twelve, he seemed
more active and seemed to be he would take greater risks.
And now early on he talked about how he would,
you know, go to computers in the library, and you know,

(59:57):
he wouldn't do anything on home stuff, and if he did,
he was super careful. He talked about how if he
wanted to, you know, look for news about a particular victim,
he wouldn't put in the person's name or anything like
that he would bring up. He would type in a
newspaper in the area and then go through the newspaper.
So as he's not leaving much of a digital footprint,

(01:00:17):
it's clear that as things went on he got more
and more careless with his digital footprint, if you will
out there.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
The other thing that's interesting, and this is more of
a like if you haven't thought of it, avenue that
might be worth looking into, is Google trends will track
like when a Google search term peaks in a specific location.
And so what we've been doing is essentially looking for
potential keys victims who disappeared significantly before there was any

(01:00:47):
media coverage about their disappearance, and looking to see if
search is trended specifically in Anchorage or specifically in Nea
Bay or western Washington. And it's not an exact sign
but I'm also you know, I have no business operating
this kind of investigation, but someone smarter than me might
be able to actually glean some pretty important information or

(01:01:10):
relevant information from this, because you know, if like someone
in Alaska is searching James Lamar Tidwell two weeks before
James la mart Tidwell's reported missing, like that seems relevant.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
Yeah, it might be. Although I remember, as I was
preparing to talk to you today, I was reviewing some
of the interviews and he talked about how he never
knew anyone's names till after he kidnapped them. Really, yeah,
it was in one of the interviews and he was
talking about having their driver's license. And actually it's an

(01:01:42):
interview where the recording equipment didn't capture the It's the
second half of an interview, so we only have the
notes from the agent that was observing, you know, through
the video feed. But that was a very interesting comment
where he talked about how he never knew anyone's names
until he grabbed them, and then he knew that from

(01:02:02):
their driver's license or IDs.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
And do you suspect he kept trophies and that they're
just cashed somewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
I do think he Yeah, I do think he kept memoirs,
and some of our investigators have always thought that finding
a cash maybe the only way we ever really you know,
absolutely identify some of these other victims because we know
that he kept souvenirs in these caches.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
Yeah, that was I guess the excitement and disappointment with
laplace there a not being a cash anymore, and be
at least as it's reported on, there were no trophies
in it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Yeah, and I think, I mean, who knows what the
trophies could be. It could be simple as an ID,
could be jewelry that for us maybe has some potential
DNA evidence on there. You know, it could be something
simple like that, but something hopefully we could capitalize on
if we over got our hands on it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
Circling back to your methodology, and we talked about this,
but just so the listeners can hear it from you
and not me, how are you analyzing and using financial records,
cell phone records, and travel records too, I guess rule
him unlikely or just to place him anywhere at any
given time.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
Yeah, so for certain years in two thousand, well, for
financial records, we've got stuff all the way back to
the late nineties in some cases and then all the
way through twenty twelve. But some years are definitely better
than others as far as financial information. But generally we've
got you know, banks, accom, credit cards, stuff like that,

(01:03:40):
and so what we'll do is we'll take a look
and you've got to differentiate between the transaction date, which
is the date that the purchase occurred, and then the
posting date, because that's usually a day or two later.
But that's a data point for us because it'll indicate
usually you know, sitty in place and store that the
transaction occurred. With cell phone records, he had a work

(01:04:04):
cell phone when he was working for the Macaw tribe
and that was a Verizon phone at the time, and
so Verizon on their bills, which he never saws that
went right to the tribe, but they would show that
the cell tower that the call would initiate off of.
Just take city and state of where that cell tower
was and out on the peninsula where there's very few

(01:04:27):
cell tower especially back then, super helpful, so we can
see Ania Bay cell tower hit. That really locks him
into a fairly small area where he could be. And
so from two thousand and three almost in the two
thousand and four and then all the way till he
leaves for Alaska. We have really good cell data for
him now if he's got his phone turned off, which

(01:04:48):
was a habit of his on weekends. On weekends would
often see that the phone's got almost no activity, there's
no nothing on it, and that's not unusual. We see
that year after year with him. But if we can
place them somewhere, you know, that's really helpful for us
when we're trying to look and consider a missing person's
case or a homicide whether he could be involved, if

(01:05:08):
we could put him somewhere else, and that's a pretty
good clue that he's probably not involved in that one.
And then we've got other records. We've got emails where
you know, he's talking with different people and you know,
he'll talk about things that he's doing or going to
do or had done again. We can't always take them
one hundred percent for his word because he was he

(01:05:29):
was a massive cheater. He cheated on his girlfriends and
you know, people that he was involved with all the time.
So sometimes I think there's some white lives in those
emails because of you know, some of the cheating that
was going on. But you know, again, those are data
points that we can get some information about what was happening.
I think I shared with you earlier about the weekend
where he you know, went on the wine tasting tour.

(01:05:52):
You know, those emails are really valuable for giving context
of what we're seeing with the financials and seeing with
the phone records. I haven't looked a lot at the
phone records after two thousand and seven. I've been fairly
focused on the Washington State victims, but I know they've
got a lot of records up there, and as you've
sent us different cases that you're interested, and I've been

(01:06:12):
able to tap into those resources to try to figure
out where he is at a given time.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
I think the thing that annoys me with keys, and
it's why it's like so hard to ignore Auckham's razor
is his whole thing was like committing his crimes in
a way that concealed his crimes, doing something when he's
very busy, or like quickly leaving in an area. So
sometimes I struggle with like, we'll phone records place him

(01:06:39):
here within hours of the crime, and it's like, well,
but isn't that his whole mo is like to make
it look like he's not where the crime occurred.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
Yeah, and that's the challenge that we have is you know,
when I had a chance to talk to him, and
he made it clear that when I talked to him,
I wanted to find out if he was using the
cell phone to create a false almy, and he it
was clear he didn't know that the cell phone records
were showing the cell tower data. And then it also
became clear that he didn't want to get in trouble

(01:07:09):
with his work for having the phone. You know, something
happened to it by you know, letting his daughter hang
on to it or something like that. So I think
we can trust the records for what they are, but
there's clearly limitations. We might have, you know, a particular
phone call that hits at particular time, but it doesn't
lock him down, you know, to a timeframe where it's

(01:07:30):
not impossible for him to drive a certain distance, committed
crime and come back before the next cell tower hit.
So there are limitations in the records. So they can
be good, but they definitely have limitations in some cases.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
And while our conversation up to this point had been
incredibly interesting other than a few small details in their
belief of multiple Canadian victims. Hallah had revealed much new information,
particularly about details he knew or suspected about the Washington victims,
things Keys might have shared with him, or unreleased information

(01:08:11):
from the letter Keys wrote that was later confiscated. But
after about an hour of talking, Hollow started to slip
in new details, interesting tidbits, unknown FBI theories, new information
that would be immensely helpful in our attempt to identify
Keys's unknown victims. So what do you think, like for

(01:08:36):
independent researchers or journalists, where do you think they can
be most effective and helpful in investigating this case.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
There's a couple of investigator avenues I've thought about. You know,
in one of his interviews with us, he talks the
question that was asked of him was have any of
his victims been located by law enforcement aside from the
ones that he's directed us too, And you tell us
he gives us a hypothetical about, you know, a body
being recovered in the water that is mistaken as you know,

(01:09:07):
presumably like a drowning or you know, some certain natural costs,
not a homicidal costs, but in fact it was actually him.
I think he's telling us a lot more than you
know when he calls it a hypothetical, but I think
that's probably hitting pretty close to the truth of one
of his victims. And so I think I've thought about

(01:09:28):
looking in areas where he's been known to frequent or
where we catch him traveling or something like that, and
looking for unattended drownings and potentially maybe we see something
there that can take a closer look at. And his
example is an excellent example. I've been involved in cases

(01:09:48):
with drowning victims and where bodies have been in the
water for you know, even just a week or two,
and the deterioration of the body is just drastic. It's
very dramatic. And I can see where see a strangulation
or some other cause of death such as that could
be mistaken when the body goes through so much change
when it's in water. But that was one avenue I

(01:10:11):
thought about. Now, if you look statistically, I think there's
thirty eight hundred to four thousand drownings a year back
in that timeframe. You know, if you could eliminate the
ones where there was you know, witnesses present, that would
knock down a huge number and then look at kind
of the ones where no one was around, and then

(01:10:33):
take a look at that and see if that maybe
produces a clue or not.

Speaker 1 (01:10:37):
There's a case out of eastern Washington, Alice Ida looney A.
She might even be a Callville Reservation native, but she
had gone missing outside of either Wenatchi or Ellensburg and
was later found in a stream. And cause of death,

(01:10:58):
I think still to this day, remains determined. No one
can account for why she would have been in that area.
There was like an outdoor toilet nearby. It was in
a pretty isolated area, not far from I ninety. Have
you guys heard of this case at all.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
I've not heard of that one, So I'm interested in
doing a little more research on that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
Yeah, it's one that stood out that I looked into
years ago and I kind of fell off my radar
to you just mentioned that through your work with the
Cold Case Division, you found that you know, he had
been working on the boat, not Inna Bay, but at
a location in Squim. Is there any more you can
share about that or how you came to know that information?

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
And it's actually when I spoke to you offline last
week I was wrong about Squim Swim and Port Angelis
from next to each other. I have lots of cases
involving both places. So it was actually Port Angelis. Okay,
So there was there's a it's a private residence. It's
an area in Port Angelis, so you can find it
on the map to kind of get an overview of like, okay,

(01:11:55):
it's this area and reveal the address or anything like that.
But some of the cold case detectives were following up
on some leads and stuff and found this particular residence.
It was associated with a friend of keys, and so
interviewing this couple that owned the residents, they learned that, yeah,
he's had his boat in there and was doing a

(01:12:16):
lot of his boat work at that time at this
particular location, which was new to us. We assumed he
had hauled the boat all the way to Nia Bay
and was doing a lot of the work on it there.
For Angels actually makes a lot of sense because that's
where all the stores are where he would have gone
to get supplies and stuff to fix up the boat.
So it makes perfect sense. But again another data point

(01:12:38):
where okay, here's a location where you know he was
working on his boat and had access to and so
we've been invited to go out and take a look
at the area in the future and just check it
out for whatever may becomes significant from that. But that
was something new that we learned from this cold case
that's been working on.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
This Yeah, that's really interesting speaking of Fort Angelis, do
you have any thoughts or theories or any additional information
on where that cash might.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
Be a million dollar questions. It's such a vast area
like it could be anywhere. That was one of the
things we were really excited about when he's committed suicide
on that Sunday. That following day on Monday was when
he was tentably agreeing to meet with us to take

(01:13:26):
us to the Port Angelo's cash. We had been working
with our technical people to rig up a video system
that would have linked back to anchorage, would have been
tied in with Google Maps, so he could direct us
and then also see a live feed from the team
on the ground. We were really excited about that, and
that was a huge disappointment in many ways when he

(01:13:48):
took his own life, but that was something we were
really looking forward to finding that cash.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
Do you think the timing of his suicide was reactive,
I guess specifically. Do you think it's because he knew
something was coming for example, this Port Angeleis search or
I believe there was also going to be a search
of Tupper Lake and the Raquet River Or do you
think it was just by means, like that was the

(01:14:14):
first opportunity he got to kill himself, which doesn't seem
the case because he was doing you know, finger painting
and blood long before this.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
Yeah, I don't think there was anything coming up that
was creating the time table that he chose. I think
opportunity is probably part of it. It's also around that
time where I think he realized he wasn't going to
get the death penalty in the year, Like he was
realizing how the federal system really works when it comes
to death toal the cases, and that reality was setting

(01:14:44):
in and I don't think he was willing to wait
to see that play out.

Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
The FBI has recently released new details about what was
found in a cell upon his death, And I don't know.
Maybe I'm cynical and maybe I've spent too much time
with keys, but to me, it just seems like he's
being an asshole, Like do you think there's value to
the caracol, or if only the blood were mine, any
of that, or do you think that's just him being
a jerk.

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
I don't know what to make of that. I know
that the letter that he left behind, we were very
hopeful that it was going to contain, you know, a
list of all his victims and you know, all the
secrets that he was holding, And fortunately he didn't contain
any of that, nothing really helpful at all. So I
think in many ways he got the last laugh because

(01:15:34):
he knew how much we really wanted to have that information,
to know who these other victims were, and I think, yeah,
he was happy to take that to the grave with them.

Speaker 1 (01:15:44):
Yeah, that's always been my thought. It's like, if this
guy didn't want to share information with you, I find
it hard to believe that in his last act of control,
he was going to relinquish this information that he's been
trying to keep for me this whole time.

Speaker 2 (01:15:58):
It was hopeful, hopeful thinking, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:16:02):
Going back to cashing, do you think it's likely that
there are more cases in the Olympic Peninsula than just
the support Angela's cash.

Speaker 2 (01:16:11):
Our impression is we think there's two. I think there's
two on the peninsula, so he kind of at one
point indicated plural that there was more than one. I
think it's one of the last interviews we had with him,
but yeah, we do think there's more than one on
the peninsula.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
To me, this previously unknown boat workshop on the outskirts
of Port Angelus and the now two Olympic Peninsula caches,
they weren't necessarily two separate discussions. The exact area where
this workshop turned out to be was not one foreign
to us or our investigation into Keys by any stretch,

(01:16:52):
And as I poked around on Google Maps, I started
to see connections between this location and other locations that
have come up, and I couldn't help but think that
this specific area would not only make sense as a
location for a cash, but would make more sense than
any other location for a cash From there, I wanted

(01:17:13):
to pivot to Utah and Wyoming, but Halla pretty quickly
surprised me with a pivot of his own regarding a
two thousand and one Keys victim, one he refers to
as the first Keys victim, and that fundamental disagreement aside,
It's clear they have a better sense of both the

(01:17:34):
timeline and location of what I'll refer to as his
first post army victim. My understanding is that the general
consensus is his earlier crimes are largely in or surrounding
Washington State, and I wonder, you know, the first time
we have him taking what appears to be a random
trip out of Washington States two thousand and four, when

(01:17:56):
it goes to Utah, do you have an understanding like,
was there in ten there whether personal or criminal, or
is that kind of where he started. I guess the
mo of traveling out of state to commit his crimes.

Speaker 2 (01:18:09):
I don't know. I was so much about two thousand
and four. But our understanding from him is, if you
think about the first homicide, which is a fairly short
time period. So he gets discharged from the army in
July two thousand and one, daughter is born the end
of October of two thousand and one, and sometime in
there is when the first homicide occurs. Our understanding from
him is that is not a Washington State homicide, so

(01:18:32):
that is an out of state homicide. He's never given
us any clues on where that is. I've always suspected
there's an organ victim out there, just a hunch of mine.
He never talked about organ with us, but we know
he frequented Oregon quite a bit. It's easy to get
to from Washington State. He had a family there that
he would visit. But pure speculation on our part. But

(01:18:54):
the first victim we do believe is outside of Washington State.
So I think whoever that is in what state is
we just don't know. But I think that's his first
out of state homicide in Washington.

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
Do you think Washington State is limited to just the
four victims that he described?

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
I do. I think that's a good number. So if
you if you break down on the assumption that the
eleven isn't correct for at least us victims, you know,
we've got four that are accounted for, We've got Samantha,
we've got the couriers, and we've got Deborah. That leaves
seven four for Washington State. I think that's an accurate number.

(01:19:35):
I have no reason to believe he's exaggerating or minimizing
on that. That leaves us three others. We believe his
first victim was not in Washington State, So I think
there's one to look at. There's some people that think
there's a Texas victim, and that's more on Punch, I
think than anything else. I mean, he seemed to indicate
that there wasn't a Texas victim, but there's definitely a

(01:19:57):
lot of suspicious activity in Texas going and then you know,
it leaves another state. So it's really a needle in
the haystack. I mean, there's only really aside from the
Washington victims, there's three from outside of Washington that we're
really looking for. And it sounds like he became more active,
like his things kind of moved on as we get

(01:20:18):
closer to twenty twelve, like some of those I think
are probably going to fall in that timeframe. But yeah,
that's that's a challenge for investigators, for anyone looking into
this case.

Speaker 1 (01:20:30):
Wyoming comes up over and over and over again. And
the FBIS in their email to me said that, you know,
Green River has never been physically searched. I cannot find
any bank robberies that you know, and I don't think
they're as widely reported or chronicled as we would hope
they would be. But is there a reason to believe
that there could be a Wyoming victim?

Speaker 2 (01:20:52):
It's possibly. I know there's a Wyoming cash and that
cash is a little different than the other ones, as
he was very specific, it's in a plastic toolbox versus
the five gallon buckets. One of the items that we've
had sent down from Anchorage that we're gonna be looking
at is Wyoming map that was recovered. So my understanding
is that there aren't handwritten notes on it, but we're

(01:21:15):
anxious to take another look at it and just see
if there's anything that jumps out at us as far
as what area it covers in Wyoming and stuff. We
do know he spent a bunch of time in Wyoming,
so Wyoming definitely be higher up on my list of
possible states for victims just because of that, and it
offers him, you know, a lot of the I've punted
in Wyoming. You know, I'm familiar with it. It's a

(01:21:36):
very remote, easy place to go do stuff and you know,
not have to worry about people bumping into you. So
it makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
And Lake Crescent, and I know we've discussed some of
this offline. Is your understanding that the victim was submerged
there via his bayliner versus like a kayak.

Speaker 2 (01:22:11):
Yeah, the bayliner is the one that we believe was
used in that. Our understanding is that he used the
Bayliner for two victims. One was on Lake Crescent. He
never identified the second lake. We suspect that it's like Leosette.
We spent a lot of time there, a lot of
privacy would make a lot of sense, but it's just
pure speculation on our part. I did see when I

(01:22:33):
was reviewing some notes from the interview where we don't
have but the recording anymore, that he mentioned that the
bodies of his submerged victims were in over fifty feet
of water, So that I think rules out Beaver Lake,
which was another lake that was considered that's much more shallow.

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):
Yeah, I drove past there because I remember reading one
of his friends saying there were I think two occasions
where he saw Kesa's car parked out out the lake late.
But it just seems like a very tiny lake, like
you couldn't really conceal a lot there. Yeah, for Lake
Crescent or I guess the baylin aer in general, is

(01:23:13):
your belief that the victims were killed on the boat
or the boat was just a tool to dispose of
their remains after their deaths.

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
We don't know, is the honest answer. We know there
was a lot of blood in the boat, so you
can kind of try to work through different scenarios to explain,
you know, how you get all this blood in the boat?
Does I mean you dismember the bodies in the boat?
Speculation in that part, but we know that was clear
from him there was a lot of blood in the boat.

(01:23:41):
He thought that there was a chance we'd may be
able to recover some DNA from the boat when we
had examined it, but unfortunately it sat with water in
it for five years and there was no usable DNA
that we can recover.

Speaker 1 (01:23:59):
It can be easy to get lost in the small
tidbits eked out over a long period of time, to
feel like they're so small there barely anything at all.
But when you put them all together, when you put
all the small tidbits doled out over the past few
months together, they paint a pretty impactful picture. Keys killed

(01:24:24):
someone outside of Washington State, likely between July and November
of two thousand and one. Tedhulla believes this was most
likely in Oregon, and this lines up with the timeline
other than a potential trip to Idaho in August to
visit his ex girlfriend from Calville, a trip I actually
think she misremembered, a trip likely in two thousand. The

(01:24:49):
only other travel we know of is a trip to
ocean shores in southwest Washington and possibly a work trip
to Tampa with Tammy. We also know now that the
victim deemed accidental is believed to have been a drowning.
We know the male female couple were likely killed in

(01:25:09):
eastern Washington. There were pine needles on the ground, there
was running water nearby. Keys could hear traffic below him
in a valley. Keys accidentally killed the male while trying
to subdue him with a shovel, and both stabbed and
strangled the female. Keys described her as an older woman.

(01:25:31):
He said they were both buried in a grave in
a valley, and they were assaulted and murdered in the
same location that Keyes encountered them. Another victim was a
younger female with dark, wavy or curly brown hair. She
drove an older car and claimed to have a wealthy grandmother.

(01:25:53):
She was murdered near her vehicle. Two victims were separately
submers urged using his Bayliner boat with anchors made of
milk cartons. One in Lake Crescent, and one they believe
in Lake Ozette. It's unclear whether they were murdered on
the boat, but Keys told investigators that his earlier murders

(01:26:15):
occurred in the same places he encountered as victims, and
in at least one of these cases, there was significant
blood on Keyes's boat following the murder. Additionally, if Halla
is correct and there are only four Washington victims, the
victim deemed accidental logically would have been in another state.

(01:26:40):
According to Keys, this was a long time ago. We
also now know that the FBI does in fact believe
there is a Texas victim, and the FBI does in
fact believe there are multiple international victims, including in Canada.

(01:27:00):
All this and all the other tidbits and all the
off the record info has painted us a very clear
picture of what to do and where to go next.

Speaker 4 (01:27:15):
I know the bedrumad it is becoming we shalls laughing.

Speaker 5 (01:27:27):
I just cannot see way out of this, and know
they're building the.

Speaker 4 (01:27:32):
Mud on the corner of me.

Speaker 5 (01:27:38):
Street, preserving something wall left to decomposing the heat.

Speaker 4 (01:27:46):
You said we'd make a room feture.

Speaker 5 (01:27:51):
I'm starting to think it was just a stupid idea.

Speaker 4 (01:27:57):
Holiday and act fuck no. But I still go to

(01:28:28):
the wood and I think that it's beau ful.

Speaker 5 (01:28:37):
Fake lights make it of everything, gliding glitter, And when a.

Speaker 4 (01:28:43):
Load to B school, I noticed the view has changed.

Speaker 5 (01:28:53):
All the apple trees they planted have finally grown up.

Speaker 4 (01:28:58):
You said we make fure.

Speaker 5 (01:29:03):
I'm starting to think it was just a stupiddal holiday.

Speaker 4 (01:29:11):
The folk give it another day. You suddenly make a future.

(01:30:02):
Just stop.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):
This episode was written, researched, edited and produced by Me
Your Host Josh Hallmark, with sound editing by Darren Wood
of The Defense Diaries. It featured FBI special Agent Ted Holla.
The episode was made possible by the following Patreon producers
Amelia Hancock, Amy Basel and Marie cash Anette el Ash Fish,
Becky c Benjamin Choppafon, Casey Jensen, Richardson, Christina Sassoon, Corey Deetley,

(01:30:29):
Dale Axton, Drew Vipon, Heather Horton, Whedon, Gen Jacoby, Gillian Natale,
Kathleen Steudter, Kendall, c Lna Holiday, Lauren f Linley, Tuscoffmanolas
Bullacus Nicoll and Dennis Henry, Nicole Gooseman, Pink s c
Shelley Brewer, Sherry D. Trista, Tuesday Woodworth, Zach Ignottowitz, Warren
Beth McNally, John Comrie, Jordan M. Jordan Taylor, Michael Beer,
Sarah C. SHAWNA. Harden, Spooky Express, Than and Lydia Fiedler.

(01:30:52):
Thank you to Studio Both, Anne's newest Patreon supporters Jenny E.
Michael G. Gillian L. Rosemary H. Stephen dice A, Amber
A and Corin B. To support the investigation and get
AD free episodes and bonus content, go to patreon dot
com slash Studio both And. This episode included music by
William Hellfire, Radical Face, Saragei, Cherimisenov and Saroh with featured

(01:31:14):
music by Halfway.

Speaker 5 (01:31:16):
Think it was just a stupid idea Holiday

Speaker 4 (01:31:25):
Fall ca

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0619 | The Future Is a Hopeful Past

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